From Financial Week: Sovereign wealth funds have invested a good chunk of their assets in U.S. companies, spending more than $43 billion from January 2007 through June 2008. But many of those investments are not disclosed and indeed are only loosely tracked by U.S. agencies, according to a study published by the Government Accountability Office.

Of the 48 funds analyzed by GAO, including heavies such as the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and the China Investment Corporation, just 60% publicly disclosed the amount of their assets under management, and only four funds gave out detailed data on all their investments….. Full Article: Source

From Nytimes.com: When Tony Tan, executive director of Singapore’s biggest sovereign wealth fund, warned in July the world might plunge into its worst recession in 30 years, many shrugged off his remarks as too gloomy.

Three months later, Reuters says, Mr. Tan’s prophecy of doom is becoming a reality as the credit crisis ravages U.S. and European banks and takes a growing toll on the global economy. Mr. Tan’s Government of Singapore Investment Corp is meanwhile sitting with 7 percent of its estimated $300 billion portfolio in cash and another 26 percent in G7 government bonds…… Full Article: Source

From Washingtontimes.com: Help for troubled American financial companies came earlier this year from an unlikely source - the same sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) that many have decried as a threat to U.S. economic independence. Recently, however, the funding has dried up.

The credit crisis that prompted lawmakers and the Bush administration to take up an unprecedented $700 billion rescue package last week could have been much worse if not for the huge injections of capital into U.S. financial companies from the foreign-owned wealth funds at the end of last year and earlier this year, according to financiers and economists…… Full Article: Source

From Bloomberg: Advanced Micro Devices Inc., the computer-chip maker struggling to compete with Intel Corp., plans to spin off its manufacturing plants as part of an $8.4 billion investment from the Abu Dhabi government.

Abu Dhabi will pay AMD $700 million for a stake in a new company that will own two plants in Germany and build another in New York. The new company, which will assume $1.2 billion of AMD’s debt, will receive as much as $6 billion from Abu Dhabi to expand the factories and get $1.4 billion in operating capital. Abu Dhabi will also pay $314 million to double its stake in AMD to 19 percent, AMD said yesterday….. Full Article: Source

From Catholic.org: While the U.S. reels under the weight of its financial crisis, the sparsely populated sheikdoms of the oil-rich Arabian peninsula are wallowing in more money than they know what to do with.

These desert nations, most of them tiny and long obscure to most Americans, are being transformed. They used to be sleepy backwaters of Bedouins and struggling fishermen. The emirate of Qatar, for example, was once known mostly for its pearl divers. ….. Full Article: Source

From FT: Much attention has been directed to sovereign wealth funds as the new big players in financial markets. Less has been written about their cousins, sovereign pension funds in spite of calculations from Morgan Stanley that those from western Europe, the US and Japan alone have $4,400bn (£2,437bn, €3,062bn) in assets, far more than the $2,600bn held by SWFs.

SPFs are buffer funds, most established in the past 15 years, to build up reserves against the cost of unfunded state retirement benefits in the decades ahead. They merit individual scrutiny because several are far from similar in character or investment. The largest SPF in the G10, according to Morgan Stanley, is the $1,900bn Social Security Trust fund of the US, which is entirely comprised of bonds from the federal government…… Full Article: Source

From Independent.co.ug: In its 2008 world annual investment report, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) said, the flows were largely driven by increased cross border mergers and acquisition activity.

The current global financial crisis has not affected investment flows made last year, but as the turmoil reaches boiling point, hitting investment confidence and drying up liquidity, investment activity is expected to halt with the robust FDI flows of last year expected to fall by 10% this year. Sovereign wealth funds and state owned investment funds may prove to be a buffer in the leaner times. The funds have emerged as new actors in the global investment scene…… Full Article: Source

From Latimes.com: No, no, no, he assured one of the businessmen buying the ailing Manchester City soccer club. The price tag for the British team wasn’t $4 billion, but a mere $400 million.

Even as the United States and much of the world reels from a succession of financial crises that are squelching access to credit and hampering economic growth in what a quarter of Americans are calling a depression, the oil-rich royal families of the Persian Gulf are bursting with cash they’re not afraid to spend….. Full Article: Source

From Etaiwannews.com: A meeting of top government finance officials failed yesterday to reach an agreement on a proposal to set up a sovereign wealth fund to boost the economy. The idea for a sovereign wealth fund came out of an economic panel meeting chaired by Vice President Vincent Siew on Tuesday.

The project received new impetus when Vice Premier Paul Chiu said yesterday morning that such a fund would benefit Taiwan’s economy, though he cautioned that it was even more important to find a transparent way of managing it.However, a meeting hosted by the cabinet-level Council for Economic Planning and Development yesterday afternoon came to the conclusion that it was not necessary yet to come up with such a fund….. Full Article: Source

From Thenational.ae: With an international credit squeeze threatening companies, infrastructure projects and financial markets, GCC governments are coming under pressure to tap their vast oil-revenue savings to avert problems.

Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), which manage much of the region’s excess oil income, are drawing increasing attention as potential new sources of loans and investment.
The GCC countries hold an estimated $US1.5 trillion (Dh5.5tn) in assets in investment funds, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington-based think tank. ….. Full Article: Source

From Propertywire.com: Sovereign Wealth Funds are expected to become one of the most significant investors in the world’s commercial property markets, according to the latest analysis.

They are expected to have a major impact potentially investing as much as $725 billion over the next seven years, according to a new global report from CB Richard Ellis. Although more than half of the SWFs are believed to already hold direct commercial real estate investments, allocations to the sector are expected to rise substantially with those based in the Middle East leading the way…… Full Article: Source

From Gmanews.tv: Opposition senator Francis Escudero urged the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) to disclose its investment schedules abroad after it claimed to have gained 1.2 billion pesos under its global investment program (GIP).

Escudero, chairman of the Senate ways and means committee, said the GSIS is obliged now more than ever to properly show where its growth claim came from as it still leaves so much doubt…… Full Article: Source